Mitch Coleborn, island hopping, Hawaii

Men who are paid to surf are a bunch of vagrants. Charming ones, for the most part, but vagrants all the same. “After being in one spot for a few weeks every traveling pro surfer gets antsy,” says photog Ryan Miller, a great observer of professional surfing. “Especially when it’s the end of the year and you just got knocked from the last event. Mitch had lost his heat at Sunset and with seeing this weird wind pattern coming, he wanted to get off the North Shore and into something a bit less busy.”

Hey, if your contest campaign didn’t go as hot as y’wanted, and you’ve got the means to do it, then why not island-hop? But, why did Miller wanna tag along? “I was excited to clear my head of all the high fives, Nike deals, 7.33s and Foodland lines, and head out to somewhere where there isn’t cell phone service and Instagram doesn’t work,” he says. Oh! “I jumped at the opportunity. There are 15 airports in the Hawaiian Islands and endless possibilities if you want to get away from it all. We jumped a flight with the goal not being to score the best waves but just to clear our heads a bit.”

So, apart from the clearing of heads, did dear Mitch and Ryan find waves of a premium quality? Tomorrow, you shall discover all.